04 - Leadership : A Critical Success Factor
Leaders often underestimate their role in bringing about organisational change. Senior leadership says “make it happen” and then expects that it will, leaving middle management faced with the challenge of diving into an initiative that they don’t fully understand. And so, while upper and middle management both expect the other to demonstrate visible leadership, mixed messages are being communicated down the food chain...
Meanwhile, the workforce - who ultimately are the ones to implement the new practices and processes - temporarily do what they think is expected but soon realise that leadership themselves are not on board and go back to their old ways. With that, another potentially great initiative “bites the dust.”
At Exceed, we’ve realised that the success of our performance improvement projects is dependent on two things: the quality of our coaches and a supportive, enrolled leadership team. Not surprisingly, the second is more important than the first.
Our leadership enrolment programme, “Partnership for Performance” is designed to create the space for managers and supervisors to air their concerns, discuss the project roll-out, and understand their role in the implementation. At the same time, it also equips your leaders with the tools to engage, adapt, connect, and help bring about an attitude shift in others.
Good coaches have a fundamental role to play in successfully rolling out the implementation plan and in coaching frontline supervisors and staff through barriers such as old habits. However, without management endorsement, not only is the change process slowed down, it also risks becoming a temporary phase, a waiting game, and thus never truly realising its full potential in terms of an enhanced HSE culture, productivity improvements, increased team morale, and all the associated benefits.
Leadership and front line supervisors often underestimate their role in this regard, and perhaps – at times – share the hope that if they ignore “it” long enough, it will go away. We are all human and we all share a resistance to change and a preference to stick with what we know and what works for us.
Yet, we know from experience that clear direction and continuous leadership endorsement not only supports project success but in fact accelerates it in ways that are visible, quantifiable, and sustainable. We believe that leadership support is so critical to the success of a project that it warrants – or rather, necessitates – a dedicated upfront leadership enrolment programme.
Exceed’s leadership enrolment programme takes managers and frontline supervisors away from their work environment with the intention of preparing and enabling them to be “change leaders” on the rig. In addition to basic project and leadership principles, we work with your leadership team giving them the tools to communicate with confidence and strengthen relationships through the Insights Discovery learning system.
Based on a simple and unique colour system, Discovery gives individuals insight into their personal style, their perceptions, strengths, areas for development and their unique contribution to the team. The Discovery colour system also helps your people understand their own and each other’s personalities better, giving them the tools to adapt to different communication styles and bring out the best in others.
Our leadership enrolment programme ideally precedes any Performance Improvement initiative and is custom-designed to the specific needs of our clients.
Programme objectives include:
- Basic principles for successful project implementation
- Leadership: the responsibility of Senior Management or a personal quality
- People, process & technology: the impact of the human factor
- Engage & connect using the Insights Discovery system
The Discovery-based Partnership for Performance programme is also available as a standalone in-house workshop for leadership or high-performing teams.
For more information on the programme and to stand a chance to win a free personal profiles (valued at US$150), contact us here (please enter the keyword “LEADERSHIP” in the comment area).